Travel Experience: Nanjing Bridge and Art Within Crystal

We ended our journey to Suzhou by having our last lunch at the silk factory. On the 5th day of our China tour, we said goodbye to the heaven on earth and moved on to Nanjing. After leaving our 1st stop to the Villa of 1st lady of Chinese president, we could see Nanjing Bridge was waiving hands to us from far. The weather on that day was the coolest of the whole trip. Temperature has dropped to below 10°C in the late afternoon (we went there during November or early winter last year). Geographically, it is most logic as Nanjing is the northernmost city of South Yangtze region.

Though it was only 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun started to set when we were still inside our couch approaching our destination.

As it was Wednesday and during working hours, traffic was quite congested and we were lucky to be able to arrive there just before sunset.

Nanjing Bridge is so popular among the chinese because it is the longest double decker, double track bridge across the Yangtze river and was wholely designed and built by the Chinese themselves. It has proved the engineering capability of China. Measuring 9km long, Nanjing Bridge is a double decker bridge with 4-lane-motorway on top of railway.

By taking lift up to the troof top platform, visitors could oversee the bridge as well as Yangtze river. Breezing weather and strong wind hit us endlessly. What a cold 10°C experience! 🙂

I was there! 🙂 Look closer and you will notice my smile was lifeless. I actually pretended to be smilling while fighting the freezing cold in my thick 3-layer outfit! 🙂

My favourite sunset scene at dusk….

We visited the museum underneath the bridge in front of the bus terminal. There was a model of Nanjing Bridge indicating the greatness of Chinese engineering. You are lucky! The guy explaining the history and facts of Nanjing Bridge was actually our “Beloved” local tour leader Xiao Zhang! 🙁

Shortly after that, we dropped by a showroom (again? You bet, yes again! 🙁 ) next to the bridge, the inner crystal painting gallery, a world class and an exclusive art originally popularised by Mr. Gao Yuen.

The gallery displays full range of inner wall painting art pieces created by Mr. Gao Yuen as well as his students. We were unlucky to miss him on that day but his assistant was there to demonstrate how things being painted to the inner wall of crystal.

Inner wall painting is so unique because of the difficulties of art and the fineness of the painting that is being painting on the inner wall of crystal (which has been pitted earlier) and magnified by the sphere shape of crystal ball (simple theory of magnifier). This guaranteed a stiff price tag. 🙂 The cheapest and smallest piece sold for RMB 120.00 and the most expensive piece could fetch a price as high as over million!

This crystal ball is about one foot in diameter. Look up close and you could see the unbelievably fineness and details of the painting…

The painting of seated Buddha and his followers…. and lights from the sky.

This is the creation that has made Mr. Gao Yuen famous of the art, Qing Ming Shang He Tu (清明上河图), describing the culture of Chinese ancient Qing Dynasty.

Even painting of animals… looks amazingly lively to me.

Do you want to know who Gao Yuen is? The handsome gentleman inside the portrait photo of the back drop.

To be frank, they are great pieces of arts. However, perhaps most of us could not appreciate arts, not many of us have bought anything there. It could easily be traced from the sour face of Xiao Zhang. So, coincidentally or not, we had the worst dinner menu during that evening! 🙁  None of the dish has been finished. Or we started to feel tired of those similar Chinese cuisine from day 1…. I don’t know.

But it could still fill up my stomach and recover some energy to continue our night excursion to FuZhiMiao shopping street! 🙂 – Travel Feeder.

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.